HOUSTON — Syracuse (23-13, 9-9 Atlantic Coast) head coach Jim Boeheim spoke to the media on Friday ahead of his team’s matchup with North Carolina (32-6, 14-4) on Saturday at 8:49 p.m. in NRG Stadium.

Here are three things that Boeheim during his 35 minutes on the podium.

Coach in-Waiting  

The always-present topic of Mike Hopkins waiting to take over as the next Syracuse head coach was brought up again, and Boeheim sang Hopkins’ praises in a way that poked fun at himself.

His answer started off with his go-to line about how Hopkins’ nine games as the interim head coach aren’t a reflection of his abilities since he was coaching Boeheim’s team. Then he got into what makes Hopkins so successful.

“Mike has proven to me over and over again that he understands the game, the players, the other things that surround what a head coach has to do. He’s much better than I am with the media, which probably isn’t hard to be. He’s great with the players. Probably better than I am. He’s a great recruiter. He’s really good with the fans and alumni. Again, much better than I am.

“…I always thought it’s better to get a great assistant who you really see that potential in to be the next head coach rather than hiring a head coach from another place who has had a completely different experience, maybe a smaller school. That doesn’t translate all the time. Sometimes it does, but not all the time.

But if you look at the great coaches I’ve seen, whether it’s Mike Krzyzewski or Bob Knight, I mean, you can go quite a bit further. They got their head coaching jobs from being an assistant, and were pretty good.”

Clinical

Boeheim hosts several coaching clinics each year for high school coaches. There are upward of 400 coaches that attend, and almost every time, he starts off by talking about his patented 2-3 zone.

“You know, it’s pretty much standard. Like this is Jim Boeheim, this is all he knows, so we’re going to have him talk about the 2-3 zone.

“I tried one clinic to start with something else. There were 400 coaches there. They started getting restless. I knew right away, OK, we’ll talk about it.

“…High school coaches come up to me every clinic I’ve ever done and say, Thanks, coach. We used it. We won the state championship. That’s a good feeling when that happens.

“College coaches aren’t going to use the zone because they played man-to-man as a player. They coached for somebody who played man-to-man. They got their first job playing man-to-man. They’re not going to come in and change their philosophy.

“I think more coaches are using a little zone now as a change when the other thing isn’t working. So I think it’s a little bit.

“But coaches are going to pretty much stick with what they’ve always done, I think.”

Going left

Boeheim was asked who would retire first: Him, or 71-year-old Steve Fisher, the head coach at San Diego State. And though he stated last year that he only planned to coach until after the 2018 season, his statements afterward make it seem as though he isn’t quite sure.

“I feel the same as I did 10 or 20 years ago. I probably feel better. I’m doing Pilates two times a week now for two years. The 10 or 15 years before that, I didn’t work out. I’m probably in better shape now. I’m in the weight room a little bit now, which I didn’t do for the 20, 30 years before that, since I stopped playing.

“So I feel healthy. My kids, you know, they keep you going. Teenagers, I got three of ’em. I think all those things, you know, they help you.

“But I’ve always felt the same. I feel the same now as I did 20 years ago or 30 years ago. I might have a couple more aches and pains, but I feel mentally the same. I feel better in terms of doing the job because you’re putting even more into it because you know you’re not going to be doing it that much longer.

“But I’ve never known how long I’m going to coach. I still don’t know how long I’m going to coach. You know, that’s not something I think about. I’ve never talked about my contract or the length of it for years. I’m still not talking about it. I just know that you could retire tomorrow. I mean, I don’t know. It just depends what happens.

“Al McGuire once told me, ‘One day I was driving to work, I come down the ramp and I turn right. The day I turn left, I’m not going to work anymore.’ He turned left one day. That was it.

“So I’m going to turn left someday, too.”

Published on April 1, 2016 at 5:58 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3